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Blackrock's Trillion Dollar Man Bob Doll claims that the impacts of current cyclical positives on the US economy are outweighing those of secular headwinds. Therefore, according to him we should all be plowing into US equties. But is he right or is he just talking his book? And if he is right, should he be making what is nothing more than a trading call on the ability of government stimulus and Fed money printing to prop up the economy? I say no.

All U.S., Canadian and global public pension plans should disclose dealings with placement agents on their websites. Moreover, regulators should ban firms from using middlemen. For every one good placement agent, there are a hundred corrupt fools looking to line their pockets.

Prosecute the criminals, or else the economy won't improve...

Yes folks, in due time, all that wealth will trickle down to the peasants who have to work for a living. Just be patient. Oh, you're hungry now? Facing a tough Christmas? Don't worry, those good Samaritans at Goldman Sachs are considering a billion dollar donation to charity. God bless their golden hearts. We need more good bankers like them.

I have found evidence that this bank has $32 billion of naked (as in apparently unhedged) swaps on its books - just like AIG. The difference is this bank is bigger, probably has more exposure, and has already been bailed out - several times. Oh, did I mention the insured collateral is nearly half BBB rated or lower??? How about extreme management issues at the top, and I mean all the way to the top. A trunk full of junk, surrounded by drama! It should be an interesting conference call tomorrow when they report, that is if anybody decides to ask the right questions...

Heads up!

For my Zero Hedge debut, I decided to introduce myself to readers by making an admission. Yes, I am a value investor. This means that I refuse to chase liquidity driven rallies and to buy stocks that are discounting operating margins and earnings that may not be realized for years. Sorry if this makes me an investing lunatic. But, if that is the case, I assume I will fit in quite well here at Zero Hedge. Welcome to my world.

The FDIC is proposing new rules that will allow banks to lower underwriting standards and capital requirements in order to encourage them to rewrite commercial real estate loans. This will cause more deflation, stagnation, and tightening of credit and will lengthen the recession/depression.

A year after the government applied many extraordinary measures to resuscitate the banking industry, the bleeding has slowed, but it hasn't stopped. Meanwhile, bank stocks have rallied off their winter lows, driven primarily by nonbanking businesses such as fixed-income trading and investment banking. There are several factors behind the big banks seeminly impressive performance....

Garrison Satch walked through the lobby of the old 23 Building on Wall Street and winked at the receptionist. Fannie was wearing red that day and was quick to return a faux-demure smile. However, his thoughts quickly turned to VeRA–not a woman, but a secret initiative launched by the owners of the Building and the New York Stock Exchange. VeRA had her own underground facility that was accessible from both the 23 Building and the NYSE at 11 Broad Street. She also had a street entrance, but...

Here I show a direct comparison of my "on the street, grass roots" and "spreadsheet" observations to that of what is portrayed in the media. Let me know if you see any discrepancies...

Congress takes a dive before round 1 of the boxing match even begins.

One of the quandaries of running a subscription service is that
when you have some really juicy stuff, you inherently limit the
audience that you are able to reach. Normally, this isn't that big a
deal. When you believe that there is a mass cover up aiming to prop up
the largest cadre of zombie, insolvent companies in modern history it
becomes a much bigger deal. This leads me to distribute a significant
amount of research for free.

While portable alpha is theoretically appealing - beta is cheap so swap into equity and bond indexes and use the cash to invest in hedge funds that produce alpha - in practice it can turn out to be a nightmare, especially during a liquidity crisis.